Los Cangrejos Ecaparon!

On Christmas day I lost a game of beach volleyball to a bunch of coke-heads on a tiny pacific Ecuadorian island called Muisne. It was a normal, friendly game of Ecuadorians vs. Gringos when one guy called a time-out, pulled out an enormous hunting knife, dipped it in his baggie, and snorted what he claimed was the reason he loved living near Colombia. The energy level of the other team quickly accelerated and we gringos were left in the dust (no pun intended).

It was definitely a unique Christmas for me. I spent almost the entire day laying on the beach reading and occasionally seeking shelter in the palm tree shaded hammocks. Muisne is a very small, tranquil island separated from the mainland by a small river full of mangroves (or what’s left of them and hasn’t been destroyed by the shrimp farming industry). I have been traveling for the last week along the Ecuadorian coast with Max and Kyla, a couple from California that I met through the organization I originally came to Quito to work with. We met on a recent trip we all took to explore a new community that the organization was starting to work with. After spending Christmas Eve and day in Muisne, we took an adventurous boat ride to the nearby surf town of Mompiche. None of us thought twice before stepping into the 15ft boat that was calmly rocking in the ripples of the river. It also never occurred to any of us that if we were taking a boat to the next beach town, we would be going out into the Pacific. We also forgot about the fact that since Mompiche is an incredible surf spot, the waves would be massive. As we left the calm waters of the river, we held our breath as giant waves crashed around us. We went flying… momentarily suspended in air before the crunching of kneecaps on fiberglass brought us back to reality. We all made it in one piece and took home some great souvenir bruises to remember the adrenaline rush. Mompiche is another small fishing town that is starting to grow quite rapidly due to the surf at the nearby point. We rented boards one day and had a great time making fools out of ourselves. One very unique thing about Mompiche is that if you walk 10 minutes out of town, you come to a beach that is completely black. The sand looks more like asphalt and you’d expect to see double yellows instead of sea shells. We spent a couple of nights in Mompiche and decided that for New Years, we wanted to be where the party was.

Our bus ride from Mompiche to Montañita, a surf and party town on the southern coast, provided some rather unusual excitement. Halfway through the trip, around 9pm, the lady sitting in front of us jumps out of her seat and starts screaming, “Los cangrejos escaparon! Los cangrejos escaparon!” And sure enough, the live crabs that she had brought aboard in a plastic bag had escaped and were now scampering around the entire bus. Grown, macho men squealed and jumped up on their seats as the freedom-seeking critters scurried all the way to the back of the bus under everyone’s seats. After 30 minutes of screaming, laughter and crab herding, the last of the lady’s dinner was bagged back up and tied tightly for the remainder of the trip.

Montañita is a small coastal town that has absolutely exploded with tourists thanks to its nice surf break. The small town is now filled with hostels, restaurants, and souvenir shops that line crowded streets bustling with tanned, toned surfers and surfer… groupies for lack of a better word. Although my increasingly shaggy hair blended in nicely, my hairy, pasty-white chubbiness fit in like George Bush in an intelligent conversation. Prices were jacked up like crazy due to the holidays, but I splurged and got a nice hotel room that even had its own bathroom. The best thing about my hotel was that they actually cleaned it regularly. The concept of cleaning for many of the places I have been staying is simply aiming at the toilet bowl stain when taking a piss.

New Years in Montañita is absolutely insane. Ecuadorians from Guayaquil and other nearby cities, pour into the tiny town for the day just to party as hard as possible. Ecuadorians can party too, let me tell you. Waking up the morning after New Years, all of the locals were still out on the street corners drinking beer until 12 noon. Anyways, the main part of the town turns in to a sort of a drunken meat market where people are just looking for one crazy night that they won’t remember. We preferred to spend New Years down a few blocks where the locals were all celebrating. In Ecuador, they have a great and very unique tradition. Everyone makes these life-size, painted and dressed paper mache manikins and displays them outside their front door for the week leading up to New Years. Then at 12 midnight, they put them in the middle of the street and burn the dolls which represent the previous year. It was an amazing scene to look down the street and see pile after pile of burning debris into which everyone started throwing fireworks. I will never forget it!

I’m back in Quito now. My original plan was to come to Ecuador to do 4-5 months of eco-tourism/sustainable development in numerous different rural communities. After taking the trip to the community with the organization when I first got to Ecuador, my mind and plans changed a little. There are tons of organizations in Quito that offer “volunteer” work through eco-tourism development, but unfortunately I believe that it has become more of a “make you feel good about yourself” type of tourism and really offers little to nothing to the indigenous people that are supposedly being “helped.” I wonder if by sending volunteers to these communities to teach English is really helping them or is it just transferring the problem and making them slightly more dependent (assuming they actually get anything out of the never consistent or qualified English lessons). To me, the main problem facing the small indigenous communities is the fact that they get used and abused by the government and foreign contractors. Many communities have oil pipelines and refineries running through them, but they never see anything from the resources taken from their land. The government hardly acknowledges that the people exist, let alone help them. Perhaps well-intentioned people would be more helpful by supporting or volunteering for organizations that try to empower the indigenous culture and give them a voice so that they can really stand up for and support themselves. It’s an interesting and very confusing topic, but my opinion is that my time could be better spent. Therefore, I have decided to volunteer with something that I have experience in and love to work with, children. I’m looking into and contacting local organizations that work with homeless street children (there are an unbelievable number in Quito). I’m also looking into working at a women’s prison where the children actually live locked up with their mothers. No long-term decisions have been made, but I’m confident that things will fall into place. Since I will be in Quito, I will be in much better contact and try to keep the updates coming. I miss everyone! Hope everybody had a great Christmas, New Years, and Hanukah!

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